Project Management: A case Study of Denver Airport

This case study analyzes the Denver Airport project from PESTLE perspective, assesses project viability, and discusses project planning. It also includes recommendations for the management of Denver Airport to make profitability in the business operations.

Running head: PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Project Management: A case Study of Denver Airport
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Table of Contents
Project A: Project influences...........................................................................................................2
1. Analyze the Denver Airport case study from PESTLE perspective........................................2
2. Steps taken to prepare for the influences.................................................................................3
3. Evaluate the decision to build..................................................................................................4
Project B: Assessing Project Viability.............................................................................................4
1. Describe the decisions need to focus on first regarding project feasibility.............................4
2. Assess the size and scale of the Denver Airport construction project.....................................5
3. Analyze the need for estimations of project cost and profitability..........................................5
4. Explain decisions and recommendations.................................................................................6
Part C: Project Planning...................................................................................................................7
1. Analyzing roles of:..................................................................................................................7
2. Describe the impact these plans have on the project...............................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

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Project A: Project influences
1. Analyze the Denver Airport case study from PESTLE perspective
The study includes with describing the project related to baggage handling system for
Denver Airport to improve efficiency of the baggage handling. The system cuts the time of hub
operations, and reduces manual baggage operations. The case study of Denver Airport is
analyzed using PESTLE perspective which are shown in below table such as:
Factors Description
Political The political situation of Denver Airport is such that city of Denver
1983 mayoral is raced the initiatives for improvement over airfield
infrastructures. They began to develop plan for longer term
development of airport in the year 1984. City of Denver hired a firm to
organize resources as well as efforts to work throughout the legal
processes.
Economic There are number of events occurred in mid 1980 alarmed the bank
economists and regions of the business leaders in the year 1980. There
is collapse of oil shale ventures in the year 1982, 1986 caused fall of
the employments levels. Lack of economy lead the governments and
Denver to unprecedented the policies of public construction to save the
regions.
Social There is maintenance of healthy relations with the contractors by
providing them with an authentication of the information regards to the
business operations. The propose system will help in customer loyalty

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so that more customers are attached towards the airport services.
Technological The airport is decided to develop the baggage handling system on
smaller scale which results to increase the profitability of the airport
functions. The baggage system is selected as innovative technology due
to complex size of project, complex architecture as well as innovative
techniques.
Legal The legal authorities can help to maintain the airport operations such as
baggage handling system for easier transport facilities.
Environmental The airport is developed of environmental management system to
identify as well as mitigate the impacts towards the environment from
the airport operations.
2. Steps taken to prepare for the influences
The project influences provide positive impact on the project success by following some
of the steps such as:
1. Management of resources: Denver International Airport (DIA) is involved with various
sources like public working program, administration those are part of outsourcing. In
order to develop the plan for the airport, the management decided to build a new baggage
handling system which allows the airport to expand without providing effect on business
efficiency (Walker, 2015). There are various financial influences in DIA; therefore cost is
key significant factor to choose outsourcing for earning considerable profits.
2. Manage business efficiency: DIA is consisted of service management system which is
structure integrated, and it is included with larger scale project and embedded technology.

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3. Evaluate the decision to build
Yes, the decision regarding building of new airport at Denver is a proper decision. It is
because the airport is experiencing expansion proceeding to the deregulations. Deregulations are
open marketplace rivalry which brings the air travel to attain average person, therefore there is
increasing in air traffic at the Stapleton airport. The regional council of the governments
forecasted that the airport is not capable to handle necessary traffic by the year 2000. Denver
Stapleton Airport is major linking airports and it was positioned top ten in US. The blocks of
Denver is affected the airports as it had two of the runways locate each other. The new airport is
built to solve the problems for Denver City (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017). Stapleton Airport was
being affected by higher velocity which was resulted in operations changed from one to added
direction. It resulted into 45 minutes. New airport brings time to 4 minutes; therefore it would
save cost as well as time for the airport.
Project B: Assessing Project Viability
1. Describe the decisions need to focus on first regarding project feasibility
Denver Airport baggage handling system results in transform of the project beneath the
project feasibility assessment. In this particular project, getting of requirement devoid of
feasibility continued to scope creep even there is overdue of project as well as over budget.
Feasibility study is aimed to test both strengths as well as weakness of the project as it is
included of resources, assessment of risks, opportunities and threats within the business
environment (Zhou, Goh, & Li, 2015). The project manager considered a feasibility assessment
in change of the project, and then the problems are not happened. The feasibility of this project is

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considered based on size of airport as well as flow quantities of baggage. RFID is not feasible
and cost effective for the daily identification but it is provided various stages of the supply chain.
2. Assess the size and scale of the Denver Airport construction project
Development of the automated baggage system at Denver has much smaller scale, but it
is not functioning in such a larger system. Size of the Denver airport project is large with
development of largest automated baggage handling system. The airport has a ability to handle
additional than 50m passengers annually (Alias et al., 2014). As planned, the system of Denver is
not so complex. Ten times larger than the automated system, there is an increase of size which
resulted in exponential growth in the project complexity. In order to optimize the system
performance, the empty carts are being dispersed around the airport for picking the new bags.
The quantum bound in terms of size as well as difficulty finished the Denver system in two years
which was unfeasible tasks (Turner, 2016). Due to size of airport, the manual system is not faster
to meet with turnaround requirements of the aircraft.
3. Analyze the need for estimations of project cost and profitability
The baggage handling system design is included with higher tech components. The total
cost of proposed system for Denver Airport is $193 million dollars. Change in design of the
automated system cost is the business efficiency. Most of the cost is increased because of change
in the extent of airport such as there is adding of automated baggage system (Tezel et al., 2015).
In addition to all this, $1 billion growth into the construction cost, there is 16 days delays in the
operations because of automated baggage system caused complications with increase of
capitalized construction interest to be around $300 million.

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The Denver airport is struggling to remain profitable in the market due to lack into the
operational performance due to use of manual baggage system. Outsourcing is done to earn
profit in the cost management (Hu et al., 2016). The proposed system will increase terminal
efficiency of the airport and throughout of the baggage system. The airline is benefited on
organizational revenue, decrease in cost to handle the baggage as well as there is an
improvement over the customer satisfaction (Flouris & Lock, 2016). The use of bag storage is
benefited smoothing peaks in the project activity as well as it enables the baggage system to cope
with the spikes within throughout.
4. Explain decisions and recommendations
In order to cope up with the challenges that DIA faced which is change in the
organizational strategy as well as scope creep, there are recommendations which are suggested to
the management of Denver Airport to make profitability in the business operations. The
recommendation is that development of baggage handling system for Denver Airport should be
relied on the structure of IT governance. The corporate governance is vital to maintain the
project requirements instill rules along with policies. The IT governance structure of airport
should consider of ITIL (Information technology Infrastructure Library). It is focused to help on
the IT services based on the business requirements. The project manager should be more focused
on leadership behavior so that they can maintain a effective business operations as well as
complete the project on time.

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Part C: Project Planning
1. Analyzing roles of:
Risk management: In case of DIA, it is mentioned that due to various reasons, there are
several delays in the project completion time. Therefore, the risk management for Denver airport
case is crucial. The study shows that there are risks which are involved within the project along
with form of apposite back up plan in place there is low potential of risk to be concerned in the
construction project (Uhl & Gollenia, 2016). There is also risk at initial phase of the construction
work when the work was started in 1989 without single contract being signed between DIA as
well as major airlines.
Quality management: The baggage handling system should make an improvement over
quality of the business operations that Denver airport is providing to their customers. The entire
baggage handling process becomes faster in addition to automated. The passengers perceive
baggage handling as major contributor to the airport as well as quality of airline. There is an
increase of competition among the air transport industry (Larson & Gray, 2016). Therefore, there
is an improvement over the baggage handling processes.
Change management: The change management of the automated baggage handling
system is allowed acceptance of the change request which are required to redesign the portions to
be completed. The design is not included of any backup system, which is required with higher
mechanical as well as computer reliability (Budayan, Dikmen, & Birgonul, 2015). It increases in
failure of risks.

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2. Describe the impact these plans have on the project
The construction project of automated baggage handling system provides an impact on
mishandled of the baggage’s among the stakeholders. Effective baggage handling system is not
required of automation. It causes to improve in process to handle the baggage. It provides a high
impact on the cost along with quality of the services (Kerzner, 2018). The international hub is
handling the transfer of baggage, which is introduced to sort the problems. Volume of the
baggage handled to raise the risk of congestions, errors in routing along with control the
problems (Turner, 2016). The physical size of the airport leads to increase in transport time along
with leave less time for definite sorting as well as handing of the baggage items. The passengers
get hassle free process which is faster in addition to reliable combined with short transfers. The
airlines are provided with passenger satisfaction along with fleet utilization. There is reduction of
cost for delivery as well as damage charges of the baggage by the airlines. The airport is
achieved of high quality at moderate investments (Verzuh, 2015). Quality is considered as a
major factor as the passengers tend to attribute errors as well as delays to handle the baggage to
the airport.

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References
Alias, Z., Zawawi, E. M. A., Yusof, K., & Aris, N. M. (2014). Determining critical success
factors of project management practice: A conceptual framework. Procedia-Social and
Behavioral Sciences, 153, 61-69.
Budayan, C., Dikmen, I., & Birgonul, M. T. (2015). Alignment of project management with
business strategy in construction: evidence from the Turkish contractors. Journal of Civil
Engineering and Management, 21(1), 94-106.
Flouris, T. G., & Lock, D. (2016). Aviation project management. Routledge.
Hu, Z. Z., Zhang, J. P., Yu, F. Q., Tian, P. L., & Xiang, X. S. (2016). Construction and facility
management of large MEP projects using a multi-Scale building information
model. Advances in Engineering Software, 100, 215-230.
Kerzner, H. (2018). Project management best practices: Achieving global excellence. John
Wiley & Sons.
Kerzner, H., & Kerzner, H. R. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning,
scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Larson, E. W., & Gray, C. F. (2015). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge:
PMBOK (®) Guide. Project Management Institute.
Tezel, A., Koskela, L., Tzortzopoulos, P., Formoso, C. T., & Alves, T. (2015). Visual
management in Brazilian construction companies: taxonomy and guidelines for
implementation. Journal of management in engineering, 31(6), 05015001.

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Turner, R. (2016). Gower handbook of project management. Routledge.
Turner, R. (2016). Gower handbook of project management. Routledge.
Uhl, A., & Gollenia, L. A. (Eds.). (2016). Business transformation management methodology.
Routledge.
Verzuh, E. (2015). The fast forward MBA in project management. John Wiley & Sons.
Walker, A. (2015). Project management in construction. John Wiley & Sons.
Zhou, Z., Goh, Y. M., & Li, Q. (2015). Overview and analysis of safety management studies in
the construction industry. Safety science, 72, 337-350.